Officials say no need for moose hunt at Quabbin Reservation

Monday

Apr 9, 2012 at 6:00 AMApr 9, 2012 at 11:46 AM

By Bradford L. Miner TELEGRAM & GAZETTE STAFF

On a good day, moose are likely to devour 10 times as much leafy, green vegetation as white-tailed deer, but the estimated 100 bulls, cows and calves living on and around the Quabbin Reservation are not considered an immediate threat to the watershed forest.

Two decades of controlled deer hunting at Quabbin turned conditions made savannah-like from heavy deer browsing into healthy forest, but no one today is talking about a controlled moose hunt, according to state Department of Conservation and Recreation officials.

Wayne F. MacCallum, director of the state Division of Fisheries and Wildlife, said there is a bill in the state Legislature that would give the Division of Fisheries and Wildlife the authority to establish a moose-hunting season for management purposes, should the population warrant such a move.

“We're not contemplating a moose season now,” the director said.

David Wattles, a research assistant for the Massachusetts Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit, has been compiling data on moose activity since the first GPS radio collars were affixed in 2006.

Today, the moose population at Quabbin is stable, and represents about a 10th of the overall moose census of 1,000 animals across Massachusetts, according to the Division of Fisheries and Wildlife.

A typical winter finds moose staying put for the most part, surviving on bark, twigs and hemlock boughs.

During the summer, they feed at night when daytime temperatures rise, and focus on those tracts where selected forest thinning and small forest clear cuts promote saplings.

A video in the PowerPoint presentation showed one bull moose latching on to a shoulder-high black birch branch near the small trunk, and easily stripping the entire branch of tender leaves.

“Heat stress is a major obstacle for moose during the summer,” Mr. Wattles said.

“To escape the heat and bright sunshine on their dark coats, they'll seek either the deep shade of the forest or find wooded wetlands, where they get into the water,” the University of Massachusetts graduate student said.

Mr. MacCallum said his agency has contributed resources to the moose study, as it has with other wildlife studies, and project leaders will look closely at the study findings.

“The ability to track them with GPS radio collars provides a tremendous amount of information. Overall, we estimate the state's moose population now at about a thousand, but the radio-collared moose give us very detailed information about their habits within a given area such as Quabbin, and the northern Worcester County corridor along Route 2,” Mr. MacCallum said.

The director said moose established themselves as a breeding population in the state in the late '80s and early '90s.

“That was a reflection of the expanding moose population in the northern New England states, driven in part by virtually no management of the moose population at that time,” he said.

Since then, Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont have established hunting seasons for moose, he added.

Moose are well-established throughout the Berkshires, and in Central Massachusetts are clustered around the Quabbin Reservation and the Route 202 corridor, and prominently along the Route 2 corridor through northern Worcester County as far east as Middlesex County.

The director said Massachusetts is the southern end of a range that extends north into the Canadian provinces.

“A moose is a large animal and it gets pretty hot here in the summer, which most likely is the limiting factor, along with the mortality from moose-vehicle collisions,” he said.

Mr. Rob Deblinger, assistant director of Fisheries and Wildlife, has been working with a state Highway Department committee, Mr. MacCallum said, that's been instrumental in looking at measures to reduce the number of moose-vehicle collisions.

“Moose Crossing” warn motorists along major roadways where moose habitat is prevalent and moose have been seen in the past, but that alone is not sufficient, the director said.